Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Red, then orange

[Silence.] [A week later the village was evacuated.] [She starts crying.] [She is silent.] [Silent.] [Silent.] [Long silence.] [She is silent for a long time.] [She is silent.] [She becomes incomprehensible.] [She has trouble breathing.] [She is silent for a long time.] [She stands up, goes over to the window.]

[As he talks he spreads photographs on the table, chair, windowsills: giant sunflowers the size of carriage wheels, a sparrow’s nest in an empty village, a lonely village cemetery with a sign that says, “High radiation. Do not enter.” A baby carriage in the yard of an abandoned house, the windows are boarded up, and in the carriage sits a crow, as if it’s guarding its nest. The ancient sight of cranes over a field that’s gone wild.] [points to the photographs.] [Points again to the photographs.] [Calms down a little.] [Boris] [Gets upset again.] [Silent.] [Goes on for some time but it is impossible to understand what he’s saying.] [Considers this.]

[She is silent for a long time.] [Suddenly she smiles.] [She is silent.] [She is silent again.] [Stops.] [Quietly.] [We drink tea and she shows me the family photographs, the wedding photographs. And then, as I’m getting up to go, she stops me.]